Martin Tisne: “Anti-corruption groups have been rightly advocating for the release of information on the beneficial or real owners of companies and trust. The idea is to crack down on tax evasion and corruption by identifying the actual individuals hiding behind several layers of shell companies. But knowing that “Mr. Smith” is the owner of company X is of no interest, unless you know who Mr. Smith is. The real interest lies in figuring out that Mr. Smith is linked to company Y, that has been illegally exporting timber from country Z, and that Mr. Smith is the son-in-law... (More >)
Index: The Networked Public
The Living Library Index – inspired by the Harper’s Index – provides important statistics and highlights global trends in governance innovation. This installment focuses on the networked public and was originally published in 2014. Global Overview The proportion of global population who use the Internet in 2013: 38.8%, up 3 percentage points from 2012 Increase in average global broadband speeds from 2012 to 2013: 17% Percent of internet users surveyed globally that access the internet at least once a day in 2012: 96 Hours spent online in 2012 each month across the globe: 35 billion Country with the highest... (More >)
A Big Day for Big Data: The Beginning of Our Data Transformation
Mark Doms, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the US Department of Commerce: “Wednesday, June 18, 2014, was a big day for big data. The Commerce Department participated in the inaugural Open Data Roundtable at the White House, with GovLab at NYU and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The event brought businesses and non-profit organizations that rely on Commerce data together with Commerce Department officials to discuss how to make the data we collect and release easier to find, understand and use. This initiative has significant potential to fuel new businesses; create jobs; and help... (More >)
Transparency, legitimacy and trust
John Kamensky at Federal Times: “The Open Government movement has captured the imagination of many around the world as a way of increasing transparency, participation, and accountability. In the US, many of the federal, state, and local Open Government initiatives have been demonstrated to achieve positive results for citizens here and abroad. In fact, the White House’s science advisors released a refreshed Open Government plan in early June. However, a recent study in Sweden says the benefits of transparency may vary, and may have little impact on citizens’ perception of legitimacy and trust in government. This research suggests important... (More >)
Open for Business: How Open Data Can Help Achieve the G20 Growth Target
New Report commissioned by Omydiar Network on the Business Case for Open Data: “Economic analysis has confirmed the significant contribution to economic growth and productivity achievable through an open data agenda. Governments, the private sector, individuals and communities all stand to benefit from the innovation and information that will inform investment, drive the creation of new industries, and inform decision making and research. To mark a step change in the way valuable information is created and reused, the G20 should release information as open data. In May 2014, Omidyar Network commissioned Lateral Economics to undertake economic analysis on the... (More >)
Lawsuit Would Force IRS to Release Nonprofit Tax Forms Digitally
Suzanne Perry at the Chronicle of Philanthropy on how “Open Data Could Shine a Light on Pay and Lobbying”: “Nonprofits that want to find out what their peers are doing can find a wealth of information in the forms the groups must file each year with the Internal Revenue Service—how much they pay their chief executives, how much they spend on fundraising, who is on their boards, where they offer services. But the way the IRS makes those data available harkens to the digital dark ages, and critics who want to overhaul the system have been shaking up the... (More >)
Putting Open Data to Work for Communities
Report by Kathryn L.S. Pettit, Leah Hendey, Brianna Losoya, G. Thomas Kingsley at the Urban Institute: “The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is a network of local organizations that collect, organize, and use neighborhood data to tackle issues in their communities. As the movement for government transparency has spread at the local level, more NNIP partners are participating in the call for governments to release data and are using open data to provide information for decisionmaking and community engagement. Local NNIP partners and open data advocates have complementary strengths and should work together to more effectively advance open government... (More >)
In Defense of Transit Apps
Mark Headd at Civic Innovations: “The civic technology community has a love-hate relationship with transit apps. We love to, and often do, use the example of open transit data and the cottage industry of civic app development it has helped spawn as justification for governments releasing open data. Some of the earliest, most enduring and most successful civic applications have been built on transit data and there literally hundreds of different apps available. The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), which has helped to encourage the release of transit data from dozens and dozens of transportation authorities across the country,... (More >)
The Art and Science of Data-driven Journalism
Alex Howard for the Tow Center for digital journalism: “Journalists have been using data in their stories for as long as the profession has existed. A revolution in computing in the 20th century created opportunities for data integration into investigations, as journalists began to bring technology into their work. In the 21st century, a revolution in connectivity is leading the media toward new horizons. The Internet, cloud computing, agile development, mobile devices, and open source software have transformed the practice of journalism, leading to the emergence of a new term: data journalism. Although journalists have been using data in... (More >)
How NYC Open Data and Reddit Saved New Yorkers Over $55,000 a Year
IQuantNY: “NYC generates an enormous amount of data each year, and for the most part, it stays behind closed doors. But thanks to the Open Data movement, signed into law by Bloomberg in 2012 and championed over the last several years by Borough President Gale Brewer, along with other council members, we now get to see a small slice of what the city knows. And that slice is growing. There have been some detractors along the way; a senior attorney for the NYPD said in 2012 during a council hearing that releasing NYPD data in csv format was a... (More >)
